Listening Party: Crocker and My Seven Mouths

Here’s the gimmick: Each week, we’ll pick two local bands — an opening act and a headliner — link to a site where you can listen to their songs for free, then ask you to spend a few moments of your precious time to tell us what you think about them. Some may be great, others may be mediocre or awful — that’s for you to decide — all we ask is that you listen with an open mind.

Opening Act: Crocker

While I don’t agree with the performer’s self-assessment that his music sounds like “Xzibit mixed with Black Rob, Talib Kweli, and Royce Da 5’9″ having a kid with Dashboard Confessional,” I will go so far as to say that Crocker is a very promising performer. He’s not the best rapper I’ve ever heard, but he’s definitely on the better end of the bell-curve.

Sure, he sounds like he’s been listening to pretty much every artist ever to work with Dr. Dre’s Aftermath label, but that’s not a bad thing. His flow is occasionally on the rough side, but that’s to be expected out of any up-and-coming rapper. In fact, the only real gripe I had in listening to his work was that his beats and backing music — mostly created by Spartanburg’s Jack Bandit — were really inconsistent. Songs like “Bomb Shelter,” for instance, end up being really distracting to listen to because the backing music doesn’t fit in very well with the rhymes. Thankfully, those rhymes are good enough that, on the whole, the tracks are still worth listening to.

There are things about the rhymes I’m not wild about — in terms of the topics of the raps, they’re all variations on the standard fare that generally boils down to bragging about talent, or dissing the shortcomings of others, rather than actually being about something unique or even novel — but the delivery tends to make up for that.

And he seems to be a decent enough live performer, which is far from the rule when it comest to hip-hop.Take a look at this performance from Burn Fest …

Disposable Rappers (Live @ Burnfest)

See what I mean? Not bad at all. Not quite at the level where I can wholeheartedly recommend his work, but rapidly closing in on it.

Headliners:My Seven Mouths

Every so often, I run across a local band that just feels “right” to me. They don’t have to be the most technically skilled, their lyrics don’t have to be the most well-written, and, as often as not, they’re not breaking any kind of new musical ground. But, somehow, all the pieces come together in just such a way that, for my own purposes, they’re exactly perfect.

Which is exactly how I felt when I heard My Seven Mouths cover Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son.” Sure, it’s basically an ironic pop-punk cover in the vein of Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. So what? It’s a fun song that I can enjoy without having to compensate for the fact that it’s performed by a local band; I’d have enjoyed it just as much if it was a Green Day side project.

Seriously, take a look …

When it comes to their original songs, I’m certainly not going to argue that there’s much innovation happening. It’s a basic pop punk formula, although with some nice echoes of funk, Southern rock, late 1980s and maybe even a little post-ska riffs on songs like “Carbon Boy.” But what’s important here is that most of these songs come together in a way that makes them highly entertaining. They “click” for the most part, even in spite of a few failings, like the limitations of vocalist Nathan Childers’ voice.

Of course, if you don’t like pop punk, post-ska, metal, ironic covers, Southern rock or any of that stuff, you might not like My Seven Mouths very much on a musical level. But I’m guessing you’ll be inclinded to admit that what they are doing comes together pretty well, even if it’s not what you actually want to listen to.

I’d avoid the song “Goblin,” which I found strangely lacking, but all their other recordings have merit.

Now, it’s your turn. I’ve put my views out here on the digital page, but you can correct, amend, disagree, refute and rebut any and all of it by commenting in the field below. Notice something about the bands that I missed? Write a comment. I’ve had my say, now it’s all about you.